Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day024.15
Last-Modified: 2000/07/24
Q. I am only going to ask you one question about this because
I think we accept what happened there, that killings
began, but this is going to be now questions B to start
with, the fact that the killings began, is there any
indication that they began as a direct result of these
orders and guidelines or did they just begin of their own
accord like a spontaneous combustion?
A. No. We have, I think, quite good documentation because we
have Heydrich's order of 29th and Heydrich's letter to the
highest SS police leader of ----
Q. I think the 2nd July.
. P-129
A. --- 2nd July which actually gives you a very clear idea
what the task of the Einsatzgruppen was.
Q. The 2nd July one which, my Lord, I am afraid I still have
not translated for your Lordship -- we are working on it
-- this is 2nd July 1941 where Heydrich, am I correct,
says to the people in the Baltic states: "If pogrom
start, you are not to stop them and, in fact, you are to
help them along"?
A. Yes. I ----
Q. "But don't let it be seen"?
A. I think I translated this in the second part of my
report. This is at page 6, and if you look at the English
translation, I have to say here that I have,
unfortunately, made a mistake here which I have to correct
because if you read this indented paragraph "To be
executed are", you have to add the word "or" to the first
line, "To be executed are all" and then it goes on
"functionaries of the Comintern", and so on, so that the
word "all" ----
MR JUSTICE GRAY: So all of the lot of them?
A. "All" also relates to the last line, "All Jews in Party
and State functions", so this is the way the original
German document is arranged. So we know from this
document that Heydrich ordered the Einsatzgruppen to
execute all Jews and part -- all Jews in Party and State
functions and the more, I think most interesting word in
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this "all" is the next line which you find on page 7 and
"other, and all other radical elements including", the
most important word is I think the "etc." in the end,
which says, "Well, this is not a definite list of the
people we are going to kill". You know, you actually, you
know, can add to the list. You can add saboteurs,
propagandists, snipers, assassins and agitators, others
who fall into this category.
MR IRVING: But am I right in saying ----
A. My interpretation of this order is that this is a kind of
open, very general order which appeals to the initiative
of the men in the field. They can actually go and extend
the killings if they find it appropriate, if it is feasible.
Q. An umbrella order?
A. Sorry?
Q. It is a kind of umbrella order?
A. Yes. Also, there is no indication in this order who
actually is to be spared. It does not say, for instance,
it is not allowed to shoot women.
Q. Why should it not be allowed to shoot women?
A. Well, it is not said in this order here.
Q. If there is a woman kommissar she was going to be spared,
or a woman sniper?
A. Then would assume that this is a Jew in party or state
function, or it is one of the propagandists, saboteurs
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snipers, and so on. So I think this is not ----
Q. Dr Longerich, I really want to come to this July 2nd
document tomorrow when we deal with your second report,
but I do draw attention to your footnote there, the second
line from the bottom, the only Jews who are actually
included in that are the Jews in party and state positions
who are on the shooting list.
A. Yes, and the word "etc." in the end, I think in my
interpretation ----
Q. That could mean anything. It could mean the milkmen and
everybody else, could it not?
A. Yes, everybody else, everybody Jew or non-Jew who was
suspicious from the point of view of the Nazis, the invaders.
Q. Can I now take you back to page 57, where we are looking
at the Einsatzgruppen?
A. Yes.
Q. I take it from your footnote that you have not made any
use of the police decodes that are in the Public Record Office?
A. I have looked at the police decodes, both in the
collection here and also at the collection in Washington.
I have seen several hundred of them, not more.
Q. Since you wrote this report or before that?
A. I saw the Washington decodes about two years ago and the
ones here after I finished the report, I think.
. P-132
Q. Just a subsidiary question: How would you rate the
decodes as a source? Are they really pure gold, untouched
and unimpeachable integrity as a source?
A. In the sense that they are authentic?
Q. Authentic and likely to contain something approximating to the truth?
A. We have actually the chance in some cases to complete the
deciphers with the German originals in this case.
Q. Compare them?
A. Sorry, compare them, and in this case it is clear that
they are authentic. The problem with the deciphers is
that they are relating to the order police, which is one
branch of the German police. A second problem is that the
German would use, as far as I am aware, a different code
for the highest class of classified documents. They would
not use this code. The Einsatzgruppen would not send
their messages through the order police system. It is
clear from one of the deciphers from September that the
Germans were aware of the danger that the codes could be
broken and the Deluger sent an order to say what actually ----
Q. Keep the figures up or something?
A. Be quite cautious here what you are sending. Also, we do
not know how comprehensive actually the work of the
deciphers were. Is this everything they got? Is this the
whole communication of the German police? So I think we
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will spend, as historians always spend, a lot of time
actually to assessing this document and to find out to
which extent it will help us to understand the killings
better than we did before.
Q. I have to take up two points. First of all, you say that
because it is the Ordnungs Polizei, the order police, it
does not contain a high level of material, but we have
seen in this courtroom messages from Himmler to Jeckeln,
and that is of course at the very highest level, is it not?
A. The high SS police leader would use the communication
system of the order police. That is possible, yes.
Q. Would you accept, having spent some time looking at these
decodes, that they are a pretty random selection, that
they are not methodologically skewed in any way? Although
it is not 100 per cent, the volume of documents that has
been left for us to look at is a random collection of many
hundreds of thousands of items?
A. I am not sure what the numbers -- what I am trying to say
is, if you look at the deciphers, you cannot be sure that
the deciphers contain the whole radio communication
between, let us say, Himmler and Jeckeln, for instance.
I have no way to find out how comprehensive and how
representative this collection is. But of course it adds
to our knowledge.
Q. Yes. You did not have those, just to make this quite
. P-134
plain, at your disposal when you wrote this report?
A. I looked into some of the Washington files.
Q. The Washington files are not as complete as the British files?
A. Yes, exactly.
Q. Yes.
A. I had the Washington files in front of me when I wrote the
report, and I did not include them here because what I
have seen in Washington for me -- for instance, I did not
find in Washington the Himmler Jeckeln correspondence and
I did not spend enough time probably on it, but there is
nothing in it which actually I thought was valuable enough
to include it into the report.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Mr Irving, could you put, really for my
benefit as much as anybody else's, to Dr Longerich what it
is you say about the decodes that is significant.
MR IRVING: I am just about to come to that very point, my Lord.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Good.
MR IRVING: You say you were not at that time familiar with the
Himmler and Jeckeln decodes?
A. Yes.
Q. Have you in the meantime had a chance to look at them?
A. Yes.
Q. I am referring here to the decodes of November 30th, the
telephone call from Himmler to Heydrich on November 30th,
. P-135
and principally I am going to ask you now about the deeds
codes of December 1st 1941.
A. Yes.
Q. There are three?
A. Yes.
Q. The first one is a message from Jeckeln to Himmler on the
morning. My Lord, do you want to have the items in front of you?
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I am trying to follow but the documents are
now even more scattered about.
MR RAMPTON: No, they are not.
MR IRVING: They should now be ----
MR RAMPTON: They are now collected in here.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: I know, but I had marked the previous
versions of them, that is the problem, and these are all in German.
MR RAMPTON: No, they are not.
MR IRVING: I have translated them.
MR RAMPTON: Wherever possible the English has been put
opposite the German.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: 31st December?
MR IRVING: 1st December, my Lord.
A. Page 142, if I am right on this, in this blue bundle.
MR JUSTICE GRAY: Thank you very much.
MR IRVING: There should be three altogether. The first one is
page 141. This is 9.15 in the morning. This is from the
. P-136
senior SS police commander, north Russia, to Berlin,
saying: "I need by next available air courier 10 Finnish
military pistols with two drum magazines, each execution
of Sonderaktionen". He requests a radio telegram reply.
What inference do you draw from that?
A. I do not know whether the term Sonderaktionen refers here
to shootings, and I do not know whether these Finnish
pistols were used.
Q. Is it a reasonable inference if I say that this is
probably a reference to the machine gunning of Jews into pits?
A. I do not know. It says militairpistol. This is not a
machine gun or short machine gun.
Q. Execution of Sonderaktionen?
A. I am not sure. I think it is reasonable to argue this
line, but I do not know whether ever Finnish military
pistols were used. They had their own weapons. I do not
see a reason why they urgently needed for these executions
Finnish weapons. It does not make sense for me. It might
be right, but I do not know the background.
Q. Might not there be reasons of camouflage? They wanted, if
bodies were dug out, to have Finnish bullets found in the
bodies rather than German bullets? This kind of thing
might have been in it.
A. We have enough expertise information that they use
normally the standard Army pistol.
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Q. Tommy gun?
A. The 9 millimetre pistol for these operations. Actually
I have not found something like that.
Q. Dr Longerich, the ones I really rely on are page 143, two
messages that afternoon, or evening rather, 7.30 p.m.,
both at the same time. One from Himmler's adjutant,
Grotmann, and one from Himmler himself, to Jeckeln.
Jeckeln was the chief villain, was he not? He was one of
the biggest murderers in Riga.
A. Yes he was the highest SS police leader.
Q. The chief SS police leader. The first one summons him to
a conference with Himmler on 4th December?
A. Yes.
Q. The second one, even more peremptorily, from Himmler
himself says to him, "The Jews being outplaced to the
Ostland are to be dealt with only in accordance with the
guidelines laid down by myself and/or by the
Reichssicherheitshauptamt on my orders. I would punish
arbitrary and disobedient acts".
A. Yes.
Q. That looks like quite an important telegram or message?
A. I think you will relate this to the telephone call of 13th
November, and I think you are right to do so.

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